u/Emotional-Cress9133

My 7 year old developed trich a few months ago and his eyelashes are pretty much gone 🥺. He tells me he pulls a lot at school, and I’m trying to think of ways to help him when I’m not there.

Has anyone found anything effective either for themselves or their kids at school? He doesn’t want to use obvious fidgets because he’s self conscious and doesn’t like when kids ask him what he’s holding or playing with. I’ve told him he can sit on his hands or make fists etc but his urge to pull is so strong. We started therapy but the therapist wasn’t a good fit, so we’re switching to a psychologist with a lot of experience in the field, but unfortunately she has a waitlist so I’m on my own figuring it out for now.

At home it’s also a major problem. He wears little silicone finger tips which did help for the first week or so but now he just takes them off and pulls. The only thing that really works is physically stopping his hands and redirecting him (he asks me to help him stop, it’s never forceful). His poor eyes are getting so red and itchy.

He’s becoming stressed about going to school because he knows he’ll do it there and can’t stop. If anyone has any idea of how the teacher can maybe help or anything else I can do, I’m all ears. Thank you!

My seven year old has recently started pulling his lashes out, to the point there’s not many left. He’s also now starting to pull his eyebrows.

It’s breaking my heart because I know he wants to stop (he told me) but doesn’t know how. He says it feels good to do it and from what I’ve seen he’s mostly doing it when idle/calm, like laying in bed before going to sleep, or watching tv or just sitting around doing whatever. But he’s feeling anxious about how he looks and worrying about whether they’ll grow back.

I’m meeting with a therapist soon who I hope will be able to help, and I’ve tried giving him various fidgets which sometimes helps a bit. But when he gets fixated on doing it, it’s like he can’t stop. I feel so helpless watching him. If you can share anything that helped you or a loved one that I might not know about, I’m open to any suggestions. Just want to help my little guy 😥.

I’m feeling really frustrated and exhausted and wondering if anyone has had a similar experience with Vyvanse. I was sooo hopeful this med would help with my constant overwhelm, procrastination, distraction, and ideally mood and anxiety (which I’m on an anti depressant for already but also don’t feel like it does much!). But I feel like it’s just making things worse maybe.

I started with generic Vyvanse and gradually worked my way up from 20 mg to 30 mg and then 40 mg. I stayed at 40 mg for about three weeks and still wasn’t noticing much of anything. I do think it actually increased my anxiety but it’s been hard to tell because my anxiety has also been really high in general lately due to lots of external circumstances.

I also haven’t noticed any reduction in overeating, which was another benefit I was really hoping for but it hasn’t quieted the food noise or my sugar cravings at all.

Because 40 mg wasn’t causing any super concerning side effects, my doctor suggested trying 50 mg for several weeks to see whether I just hadn’t reached an effective dose yet.

I took my first 50 mg dose today (brand name this time which I requested) and at first I thought I felt more jittery/anxious than usual. Then about 6 ish hours later I had a huge emotional meltdown and I completely lost it. I was yelling, crying and felt extremely out of control. Like full on rage triggered by my kids and husband and overwhelm. I already struggle with irritability and emotional overwhelm in general, but this felt like my normal rage on steroids. 😰

Now I’m questioning the whole thing and wondering if my anxiety has actually been worse since starting Vyvanse and if I just crossed over a threshold at 50 mg.

I don’t really know what I’m asking. I guess if anyone else dealt with feeling this way and did you push through and then come out with benefits, or did you give up on Vyvanse? I don’t want to have more meltdowns like this so I’m tempted to just throw in the towel but I don’t know.

I’ve seen so many people here have such great experiences and I guess I’m just bummed it’s not happening for me, and is possibly turning me into even more of a ragey mess.

I recently started generic Vyvanse and have been working my way up from 20 mg to 40 mg. I’ve only been on 40 mg for six days, and I wasn’t even sure it was doing much.

Yesterday, I missed my dose because I was busy in the morning, and by the time I remembered, it felt too late to take it. I figured skipping one day wouldn’t be a big deal since the medication wears off by the end of the day. But I ended up with a really bad headache, extreme fatigue, and much worse irritability and emotionality. I’m often irritable and overwhelmed to begin with, which is part of why I wanted to try ADHD medication, so now I’m wondering whether this was some kind of withdrawal or whether I was just noticing the difference between being medicated and returning to my normal baseline. It seems strange that I would have such strong symptoms after being on it for such a short time.

For people who have taken Vyvanse long term: do you notice headache, fatigue, irritability, or other withdrawal-type symptoms when you miss a dose? And how can you tell whether it’s actual withdrawal versus simply being back to your unmedicated baseline?